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Moving Cultures Mobile Communication in Everyday Life 2007 264 pages Complementary Texts Woodrow Barfield and Thomas Caudell Yuichi
Ohta and Hideyuki Tamura Keywords Identity and Subject Formation Copyright © 2003-2007 Isabel Pedersen |
Moving Cultures addresses the “mobile turn” in popular culture. The writers state their thesis: This book explores the social and cultural dimensions
of the “mobile turn” in everyday communication and the multiple ways in which
these new communication practices participate in the everyday production of
culture. (3) This book
focuses on cell phone (mobile phone) culture and practices of teenagers, and
the sorts of verbal performances that youth enact in response to their mobile
technology. This book is
unique in its orientation. In a section called “Life Stories of Technologies
in Everyday Life,” the writers focus on the specifically personal and
revealing aspects of technology: Indeed, a mobile that never rings could confirm
the unpopularity of its owner. Thus, objects “speak” to us. The way we use
them is just as revealing: carrying one’s mobile everywhere, keeping it
turned off most of the time, or putting it on a table in a restaurant area all
clear forms of behaviour that reveal things about
the users and their relations with their social circles. Excellent also is this book’s analysis of advertising to situate the field research. By using visual cultural artifacts, these writers support their arguments in convincing ways. Interesting too is the constant comparison between Canadian, American and European mobile phone cultural practices. |